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female exploitation

*note: first part of article not written by me. Found online but no link.

Last August, a high school girl in Steubenville, Ohio was gang raped by her classmates. No one did anything. Ever since, the woman has been shamed for “letting it happen” or “asking for it” (or some similar bullshit) while the classmates, who are supposedly supposed to go on and do great things (like get away with one of the most heinous crimes ever and play football), have an entire community rallying behind them. Have you even heard about this? If you have, good. If you have, I’m pleased that this news made it to you through the patriarchal grapevines of American media. If you haven’t heard, that sounds about right. Most people I’ve talked to haven’t. Next story. A couple months ago, a woman in India was gang raped in a public bus in New Delhi. The law enforcement said it was her fault. Did you hear about this? Of course you did! Everyone did. And you know what happened immediately after? The whole country, in one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen in my life, protested against the legal system and Indian government. It was college students – men, women, and otherwise – fighting against arrays of policemen who make a living using their baton. It was newspapers starting to publish articles about respecting women. People stood up for this woman and all the women that are constantly abused and mistreated in India. India’s civil society stood up, literally, against violence, and protested against the institutionalized patriarchy and lack of action regarding rape survivors. It was inspiring, empowering, and gorgeous. It was India’s civil society and it was mesmerizing. We have to stop presenting rape cases in foreign countries as within their relative norms and out of ours. We have to stop discussing rape in the context of community or location and we have to start discussing rape in the context of men trying to assert dominance over women – no matter where she is or what she is doing or asking or saying or wearing or drinking. And we need to demand that our media and culture does not enable it’s viewers to become desensitized to raping women. I’ve been a fan of the American Horror Story franchise since the first episodes began airing. As the campy plotlines and serious supernatural gore of the first season continued, I found myself enthralled. Yeah, rape and sexual assault were used gratuitously, but as a fan of popular culture, I’ve become regrettably hardened to its use. As long as it was a known part of the plot, I was braced for it. The awesome character-building and portrayal of strong (and sometimes sketchy) female characters like Vivien, Violet, Moira and Constance (and weak, slimy, disgusting male characters like Tate and Ben). The rape of Vivien and the subsequent demonic child in particular seemed like an almost-relevant use of rape as a plot point. It seemed almost like the director was aiming at highlighting the horrors women go through at the hands of terrible men. Or something.

Season 2, dubbed Asylum, was unsurprisingly as rape-filled, if not more so. But, similarly to the first season, it had redeeming aspects– particularly, its focus on race and sexuality issues of the bygone era it was set in via the lesbian and interracial tragic love stories was important for representation in media. That the black wife of the white man who was committed was abducted by aliens, and that the girlfriend of the (female) journalist who became ensnared in the asylum was murdered (and the journalist subsequently raped by her murderous therapist) was, to many fans, secondary. It seemed off — all this violence against women and people of color –but not so much that I was prepared to deem the series racist and sexist and quit watching it.

Last week, all of the triggering material of the previous seasons were far from my mind as I sat in my new boyfriend’s living room with his three male roommates and watched the premiere of American Horror Story: Coven. I was excited particularly to see what Gabourey Sidibe, Angela Bassett and Kathy Bates would bring to the already amazing cast.

I sat in a room full of men I don’t know that well, and within the first five minutes of the episode, Kathy Bates (portraying the infamous murderess slave owner Delphine LaLaurie) inflicted gory torture upon a black man her daughter came-on to as her other victims and, perhaps most gruesomely, her black child servant, watched on. Later, I sat in uncomfortable silence through the date rape scene of the young witch and starlet Madison (played by Emma Roberts). Multiple frat brothers raped her as she layed in a drugged haze– and she later exacted her revenge by flipping their bus using telekinesis (and the initial perpetrator murdered through sex by Taissa Farmiga’s character). I still hadn’t told my boyfriend that I’m a sexual abuse survivor. It wasn’t a happy evening.

Detractors will, of course, note that the ever-increasing offensive violence portrayed on the American Horror Story series is used to show the evils their perpetrators– a human backdrop of terror to superimpose the supernatural subject matter upon. This has been done countless times on supernatural-themed TV series and movies — from Buffy to The X-Files to Twin Peaks – showing human evil as far worse than the supernatural is a common, and powerful, dramatic tool. Indeed, Executive Producer Tim Minear stated that this season would contain oppression and race as thematic elements. That should be warning enough, right?

Wrong. There are tasteful (and non-triggering) ways to address subjects like racism, oppression, and sexual violence in entertainment– at the very least, a warning a la Law & Order: SVU would suffice. But instead of warning audiences about the violence they are only semi-knowingly subjected to, American Horror Story chooses to use depictions of this kind of violence to shock and awe. Regardless of era or context, showing rape and racist torture can be painful to audiences–and no historical portrayals or TV-Mature rating can change that.

RATINGS ARE IRRELEVANT. Lets make is so we don’t need them shall we.

Thanks to the American Horror Story: Coven premiere, the TV ratings system needs a new warning. The TV-MA (a.k.a. “don’t watch this if you’re under 14 and your parents are home, otherwise carry on”) rating isn’t hacking it. We need TV-EMA, TV for the emotionally mature. During the season premiere of AHS: Coven, it became clear that only harm can come from certain fans enjoying the sinister show when groups of them began cheering on the rape of Madison Montgomery (Emma Roberts) via Twitter.

The scene in question — which might be one of the most brutal rape scenes on recent television outside of Sons of Anarchy —finds Roberts’ character, a snobbish former starlet, being drugged and gang raped by a series of sloppy, laughing frat boys until Evan Peters’ Kyle rushes in to stop tThe perspectives in the scene are what make it so pervasively difficult to watch: Its shot from angles that align our view with that of the victim,

watching ghoulish goons hump happily while Madison is rendered helpless but not unconscious by the drugs they slipped her. Despite the deplorable attitude exhibited by Roberts’ character before she’s drugged, it’s certainly not a scene worthy of whooping it up. This scene is not about a brat being punished for her brattiness; there is no excuse or reason for this violation. It’s senseless brutality, plain and simple, and it’s a crime strong enough to awaken the witch in Zoe, who later exacts her revenge on the disgusting lead frat boy by having sex with him until he dies. (Quick background information reminder: Zoe’s lady parts are toxic and kill anyone who has sex with her.) Yet, somehow, some fans took to Twitter, expressing joy at the brutality of the scene — many of them because they dislike Roberts as an actress. “So happy @RobertsEmma got frat raped in #AmericanHorrorStory her acting is so lame. But that was funny. I’m going to hell, wait…I’m here,”tweeted one fan. “Emma Roberts getting gang-date raped, sweet,” wrote another. Some even identified with the college boys doing the dastardly deed, “Shit, I would drug Emma Roberts just to have sex with her,” or wished the real version of the scene upon the actress saying, “i hope emma roberts gets raped.” The callousness of these reactions varied, but one truly disturbing element remains a current throughout: These people think rape is a joke. The thing is, I thought we already covered this when Daniel Tosh has his public flogging for telling a female audience member it would be funny if she got raped. It opened up months upon months of public debate, with much of the crusade led by Jezebel writer Lindy West, who deftly debated comedian Jim Norton on the topic of rape humor. She argues:

I believe that the way we speak about things and the type of media we consume profoundly influences how we think about the world … I do believe that comedy’s current permissiveness around cavalier, cruel, victim-targeting rape jokes contributes to (that’s contributes—not causes) a culture of young men who don’t understand what it means to take this stuff seriously.

The response to West’s fantastic, educated, conscientious arguments was a barrage of comments that “that big bitch is bitter no one wants to rape her” or “wouldn’t the best ending be that Jim Norton rapes the fat girl,” completely proving her point. Now, in response to a truly disturbing moment on television, the cavalier masses strike again, proving that West’s (and my) fears are very real. Troves of young people — men and women, alike — find no issue with joking about rape, fundamentally detaching themselves from the true weight of the word and allowing themselves to turn it into a vehicle for a few measly retweets. They’ve found enough detachment from the word “rape” as they have from accepting that Roberts is a real person and that acting is her job, not a mystical veil that turns her into plastic so she can safely absorb threatening Internet comments. The fact that social media allows users to lob these hateful comments from an often impenetrable barricade, behind which they can safely snicker, only heightens the desire to test the limits of what they can say and get away with. Certainly, that element of social media is a big piece of why comments like these continue to crop up. But to say that there isn’t a larger issue here, in which young people seem to hold some lighter definition of rape in their minds which they reserve for jokes and pithy quips and keep as far away from its true meaning, would be missing the point. Some portion of our larger comedic discourse made these people think these “jokes” are alright. Something is suggesting that cheering on rape is hilarious as long as you’re not actually doing it. And something in this picture is terribly, terribly wrong. The rape was featured in an episode entitled “bitchcraft”. BITCHcraft. Bitch got what she deserved huh. And notice the advert pictures. Every single one is depicting a woman as nothing but a victim. And people (and many women) are okay with this “entertainment”???? Lastly, let me leave you with this video depicting what our society has done to our youth. Media, social media, and the denial mentality has created monsters. When are people going to wake the fuck up and speak up? http://vitaminw.co/culture-society/roast-busters-perpetuate-rape-culturehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0PcMxLjfJsw

“Even if you are not a pornography consumer, a significant number of the men you interact with every day will be. It’s difficult to imagine that a man can spend a lot of time viewing and masturbating to degrading images of women without that pornographic ideology having a negative effect on his view of women.”

Here we go again. Another reason for women to feel inadequate physically. Now we all know the boobs are expected to be perky and fake. Or, if you’re lucky, perky and real (does that even exist anymore?), but now girls and women alike are being led to believe that their man will stare at his coffee, get sick at the thought of it reminding him of the color of his lover’s vagina, and will most likely reject you. For you see, women are supposed to have the “bleached” look now, much like the porn stars. Yes, I even read once that they bleach their assholes! Bad enough plastic surgeons are doing vaginal cosmetic surgery because we are made to believe that they must look that of an 11 year old. Now this? This is a nightmare. One might say “thank God this isn’t in the US”…but I’m pretty sure the good ole US of A boys are wanting the porn star look as well. Okay, NOT all of them. Thank God. But you will see what I mean when you see this:

Very refreshing and fills me with hope to find men who are fighting for women. And no, not in the ‘damsel in distress’ way. In the human way. Yet they are constantly bombarded with backlash from other boys. Yes, I said boys. Men don’t have insecurity about standing up for what’s right for our sisters, daughters, wives, etc. Bravo to these men. And thank you from the bottom of my heart.

Good news for pay cable viewers who like their sex scenes graphic, bloody and spiked with an unhealthy dose of violence. You can pay for shows like “True Blood”, and enjoy them in the “comforts of your own homes.”

I didn’t watch it the past seasons, but it remains to be seen if “True Blood” can top (or did top) a scene from a previous season in which a male vampire twists a female’s head around 180 degrees during a bout of blood-drenched “hate sex,” the promoters make clear that the season won’t skimp on the sex and violence. Wonder why? Could it be because that’s what people want? Unfortunately, it appears so.

Since the premium channels began to produce their own original series. HBO, Showtime and Starz churn out shows complete with dismal characters and repulsive dialogue, all with a heavy dose of pornography and blood-soaked drama. And, as critics have pointed out, as goes pay cable, so eventually will go broadcast programming. Broadcast tv (abc, nbc, etc) is already starting to piss me off.

Back to pay cable…HBO’s “Game of Thrones” had a pretty brutal sex scene and specializes in “sexposition” – characters say their lines, as if nothing is going on, while they are engaged in a variety of sex acts. “Spartacus” a popular series on Starz, drew praise from Huffington Post for “generous helpings of graphic violence, orgiastic nudity, and racy sex.” Showtime’s sex-laden historical drama, “The Borgias” included incest, and a porn industry editor said of the network’s reality show “Gigolos,” “Please, it’s porn! they’re showing hardcore sex.” I didn’t watch that show. I just couldn’t, even if for the need to research. Therefore, I can’t really speak on “Gigolos.” However, the name speaks an abundance of words to me. Not interested, much like “Diary of a Call Girl”. Really? Is that supposed to be empowering for women?

This tidbit of research below is what has disheartened me the most. It’s short, sweet, and to the very scary point.

The MRC’s Culture and Media Institute analyzed the original series of HBO, Showtime and Starz and concluded:

Pornographic sex and bloody violence are found in the majority of premium content, and producers seek to add more in the future. Broadcast TV is sinking to pay cable’s lack of standards as free network channels include more soft-core sex scenes and violent drama in their original series.

While the FCC has precise regulations against indecency and obscenity in broadcast TV these provisions do not apply to pay cable channels, since the viewer chooses to pay extra for them. And if you’re thinking about now, “if you don’t like it, don’t pay for it or watch it,”don’t bother. Let me ask you this? How is it, that the Teen Choice Awards nominated True Blood as Best show? The average age of those involved? 14. So, people are watching no matter what. Children are watching. Little girls are watching women get abused, and sexually objectified, and and and, well, that’s what they think guys want. And boys are watching and thinking, I need a girl like that. Wonder if she exists…And I am concerned about it. I liked some of the shows in the beginning. I wanted good characters, plots, and suspense. I now watch so I can have a clue what I’m writing about. I watch because perhaps, I like to know that destruction of our society is imminent. I need to watch and know and stay aware. I guess I’m a masochist after all. And I used to be angry, well, still am, but I’m mostly deeply saddened.

The most profound statement I’ve seen in years:

“Pay cable defines deviancy for everyone. It is essentially the porning up of popular culture,” Benjamin Shapiro, Breitbart.com Editor-at-large, said. Good for you Ben. Good for you. If only there were more of you. If only…

HBO hits regularly feature pornographic scenes. “True Blood” has featured characters engaged in orgies, glorified drug-induced sexual encounters, regularly mixed blood and sex and subjected audiences to the scene described above – television’s goriest sex scene yet. And grown women on my facebook page go ga-ga over this. Over THIS? My guess is they are the very same who drool over the fictional and ridiculous made up man called “Mr. Gray.” Men, watch out. Women all over want vampires and men that treat us like shit. You better stop being nice!

HBO’s actors aren’t bothered by it, or at all affected about nude scenes. Anna Paquin who plays Sookie Stackhouse on “True Blood” said in an interview with Rolling Stone magazine, “I don’t pretend to think that on the 18th hour of shooting anyone on set gives two flying whatevers that I have my tits out.”

Paquin appeared with fellow cast-mates Stephen Moyer and Alexander Skarsgard on a smutty Rolling Stone cover, which featured all three stars naked and covered in blood, with Paquin posing seductively between the two men.

Producer Alan Ball told Rolling Stone that he believed vampires are sex. “I don’t get a vampire story about abstinence. I don’t care about high school students. I find them irritating and uniformed,” Ball said. Wait….HUH Mr. Ball? High-schoolers are your biggest customers!

Stephen Moyer, who plays Southern vampire Bill Compton gave explicit and gory praise for “True Blood” and its undead cast.

“It’s a de-virginization — breaking the hymen, creating blood and then drinking the virginal blood. And there’s something sharp, the fang, which is probing and penetrating and moving into it. So that’s pretty sexy. I think that makes vampires attractive,” Moyer said in an interview. Oh. My. God. He didn’t really say that?

Rolling Stone happily produced an entire spread to “True Blood’s” sexual deviancy. “On True Blood every available orifice is used for intercourse: gay straight, between humans and supernatural beings, and supernatural being on supernatural being, whether he be werewolf, dog, or an enormous Minotaur-looking being called a maenad.”

“It’s about taking things to the point of where normal frames of society wouldn’t think was an okay thing for a young, Southern girl to do. It’s interesting to think about sex as the search for a moment together which is a glorious combination of orgasm and sexual oneness that might lead to death,” Moyer said. I’m sorry, but this guy is a complete idiot. Actors are so annoyingly fake anyway.

The wild popularity of “True Blood” paved the way for HBO’s next original show, “Game of Thrones.” The series is a medieval drama, based on George R.R. Martin’s “A Song of Ice and Fire” book series, and while the plot drastically differs from “True Blood,” it too features ridiculous amount of graphic sex. What a shame. Truly. The books were apparently fantastic. And my husband couldn’t even watch the show it was so bad. He was gravely disappointed. As was I.

“Game of Thrones” has been criticized even by left-leaning critics at Huffington Post and The Washington Post for its appalling amounts of sex and nudity; specifically for a savage, sexual torture scene where child-king Joffrey forced prostitute Ros to beat another prostitute, Daisy, with a spiked bronze scepter. Joffrey held the two at crossbow-point, and a sadistic smile played on his face as Daisy’s screams echoed across the walls of his bedroom.

“The show’s relentless use of nudity has become so outlandish,” said Anna Holmes of The Washington Post, “that it often overshadows or distracts from the natural story.”

HuffPo’s Lorraine Wilke commented, “Apparently the writers and show-runners holding the reins at premiere cable land are bursting to expose every sexual anecdote they’ve ever heard, witnessed, or experienced.”

“Game of Thrones” on a website called Vulture tallied the “greatest sexposition moments” in “Thrones,” complete with pictures. Isn’t that sweet?

At the Daily Beast, writer Jace Jacob observed:

While frank sex in HBO shows is common (just look at True Blood), Game of Thrones appears to be placing it front and center … There’s been a litany of such scenes: Harry Lloyd’s Viserys recounts his family’s sordid history to a pleasure slave astride him in the bathtub; Alfie Allen’s Theon offers a full-frontal view of his manhood after having sex with a prostitute; there’s Peter Dinklage’s Tyrion, abed with multiple whores in the series opener; and a scene between Emilia Clarke’s Daenerys and her handmaiden turns into a steamy lesbian-tinged sex training sequence.

Esme Bianco, who played the prostitute Ros starred in her own provocative lesbian sex scene, as an audition for brothel owner Petyr Baelish. Baelish then delivered a monologue while the two prostitutes graphically pleasured each other. This scene was created for television, and didn’t appear in the books.

“The above scene came out of left field,” commented Ben Shapiro. “To write this scene in, it was obvious HBO thought they needed to add more graphic sex.” Gratuitous at it’s best.

HBO’s rush for the gutter began to accelerate with series like “Entourage,” and “Big Love.”

The LA Times gushed about “Big Love,” saying, “For three seasons, the HBO drama about a polygamist family was astonishing in its narrative agility, able to persuade increasingly devoted audiences that the Henrickson clan — one husband, three wives — was not all that different from their non-polygamous counterparts.”

“Entourage” happily held up a mirror to Hollywood’s debauchery. The Hollywood Reporter described“Entourage” as “The concoction: fame, money, sex, drugs, parties, more parties, more sex, more fame, more money and then a bunch of detours for everyone else in the entourage to have either a lower-level semblance of the same happen to them or, to prove a point, not happen to them at all.”

ABCNews.com described the scene in the show “Girls” as “borderline date rape,” but the awful sex doesn’t stop there. Allison Williams, daughter of NBC anchor Brian Williams, was featured in an explicit masturbation scene. Fellow characters Jessa and Shoshanna regularly have sex and perform oral sex on the show. Brian must be so proud.

Showtime loves prostitutes. Two of its original series focus on the trade. “Gigolos” is a reality show which follows five male escorts who service women in Las Vegas, while “Secret Diary of a Call Girl” focused on a female prostitute.

Historical dramas like “The Borgias” and “The Tudors” trade facts for foreplay, and are laden with gratuitous sex. “The Borgias” chronicles the life of the corrupt Borgia family who rose to power in the Catholic Church and is fraught with bed-hopping and rumored incest.

“Brother-sister duo Cesare and Lucrezia look like they are mere seconds from making out with each other,” said Morgan Glennon of Huffington Post.

“The Tudors” included a bounty of sex scenes and bordered on a“soft-core skin flick” in most episodes, and “The Borgias” is following suit.

The moral standards of pay cable are non-existant, and Showtime producers take pride in how far the network can push any boundary. Ten of its original series are fixated on explicit sex and often descend into violence-porn.

Showtime’s most depraved series is “Dexter,” which glorifies murder and violence, and (of course) boasts lots of casual sex. Dexter is described as television’s “anti-hero,” a man who at a young age discovered joy in murdering humans. But to Showtime that’s just fine if the victim is a criminal. The characters are great, and evil as it is, even the story lines have potential. But this years season 7 did me in. They throw in the strip club and it’s bouncing members often, and it has become way too uncomfortable for me to watch women being objectified as either manipulative bitches, prostitutes, strippers and mostly naked. I’m a woman. I’m officially offended.

Other Showtime offerings include and “Weeds”, “House of Lies”, etc. The list goes on and on, with each show just as horrible as the next.

The media loves to highlight the filth of pay cable television. “True Blood” has a long list of awards, including nominations for 12 Emmys and three Golden Globes. Both “Game of Thrones” and “Dexter” were nominated for Emmys in their respective categories.

“Game of Thrones” and “True Blood” regularly receive positive reviews from both The Washington Post and The New York Times.

Sarah Anne Hughes, a blogger for the Post, seemed very emotional about the “Game of Thrones” second season closer, “Take a moment. Exhale. Wipe away any remaining tears. It’s not goodbye, just see you later,” she wrote. Really lady, you need to get out more.

The New York Times’ Gina Bellefante couldn’t get enough of True Blood’s gritty sex. Bellefante wrote, “The sex is served in such luridly voluptuous, viewer-satiation-guaranteed portions that the show feels like nothing else on television, by which I mean television that isn’t available exclusively on $15.99 hotel-room pay-per-view.”

New York Magazine raved about the abhorrent plot of “Girls.” “As a person who has followed, for more than twenty years, recurrent, maddening ­debates about the lives of young women, the series felt to me like a gift. Girls was a bold defense (and a searing critique) of the so-called Millennial Generation by a person still in her twenties. It was a sex comedy from the female POV, taking on subjects like STDs and abortion with a radical savoir-faire as well as a visual grubbiness that was a statement in itself,” wrote Emily Nussbaum. Oh. My. God!!!!! These are women too. Women find this all so sexy and free and wonderful. What the fuck people. Really?

Another profound statement…well, not so much, but Ben is my new hero:

“Pay cable can deliver content no one else allows you to have because they make the big bucks in debauchery,” Shapiro told CMI. “The liberalism is obvious. They are happy to be pushing boundaries and take great pride in degrading American discourse (don’t forget the degradation of women Ben!). From now on the entertainment industry will be competing at the lowest common denominator.”

The lack of standards in pay cable is giving audiences a glimpse into the nasty future of broadcast television. Regular cable networks regularly feature ribald behavior and vile rhetoric. FOX’s “Glee” is a series geared toward kids ages 12-17, but the dark agenda of the show is masked behind a peppy, musical world.

“To me, ‘Glee’ is more dangerous than ‘Game of Thrones.’ It has a specifically designed political and adult agenda set in a high-school musical world,” Shapiro said.

A recent episode of “Glee” centered around teenagers losing their virginity and featured a gay sex scene. Gay is fine. Hetero, all good. But do I have to watch it on tv? No thanks.

FX’s “American Horror Story” was so horrifying that even the cast was shocked at the content, and questioned whether it was appropriate for broadcast TV.

American Horror Story” featured voyeurism, dual masturbation, and a masochistic minute-and-a-half long sexual encounter between characters.

The perversion and objectification of women in premium content is no longer contained to pay channels only. In fact, Ryan Murphy, creator of “American Horror Story” and “Glee,” said it is his goal to “remove every barrier to the depiction of explicit sex on TV.” Slowly but surely, he’s succeeding. Way to go Ryan. Thanks so much for your contribution in dumbing down Americans even more.

I recently had a blow out with someone that is very close to me. About Dexter. About how society views women. About the episode with at least three graphic strip club (completely unnecessary) scenes. He knows how I feel, and says “gets it”. But he doesn’t “get it.” This is my fight. I need to not be chastised for my fears and apprehensions about what tv is doing to women. And he doesn’t understand. If he did, he would turn it off like I’ve finally decided to do. That would be supportive. But he chooses not to be. If I am truly alone in this like I feel daily, then so be it.

Finally caved, and went to game stop yesterday after the one thousandTH “mom please can you take me, please mom…..please, I’ll mow the lawn, I’ll empty the dishwasher, I have a card and you don’t need to spend a dime” pleads from my oldest and most relentless of sons….sigh. I hadn’t showered, I had no make up on, and my clothes were stinky. I eventually said yes, but I wasn’t going to go in. So off we go, all three boys and I. We get there and he pleads for me to go in in case he doesn’t have quite enough money. He said to me “they are all nerds mom, to them, you are a super model.” Hmmmm….thanks? Not sure HOW to take that. But me and my smelly self walked into the store. Only to see THIS staring back at me AND my three boys:

Now here is where I start the head scratching. Do you see what I see? If not, I’ll let you in on it. I see the logo “Come Get Some”. Now, I wasn’t born in a cave. I know to which that “some” refers to and it isn’t the big goon’s belt buckle. Rated M for 17+ for “extreme gore and violence, language, nudity and strong sexual content”. Forget the fact that they display this big muscle bound, Masculine “savior” to the damsel in distress. I’m concerned about the damsel herself. Dressed as a school girl, but clearly older. And what’s missing from this picture? The very SOUL of who she is. Her IDENTITY. Her FACE. GONE. Punched out by a huge hole puncher. Made to look like nothing but a weak, sexual, insignificant, nothing who’s face doesn’t matter. She isn’t important enough. She only fills one role. I had a friend today tell me that he thought it was just the marketing “ploy” on behalf of the advertisers. Yes, it draws a crowd so people can pop their heads in there and have their picture taken with good ole Duke. Cuz DUKE is the STAR and she’s not (she IS a character in the game no?). I don’t buy that. SORRY. Just don’t. I’ve researched many subjects on the portrayal of women in the media and magazines. They are often shown as mere body parts. (and perfect ones of course). Their faces are rarely shown at all. Sometimes they are looking upward or down, in a submissive and almost distressed way, but rarely directly into the camera. Looking straight into the lens relays an image of power. And women are rarely in that position in the media. This was is SO blatant I was almost shocked. Almost. I will definitely post some of my findings on the media angle in the future. But for now, I’m simply interested in this one game and how it came uninvited into my world, and that of my sons. Much like the sports illustrated swimsuit issue finds itself uninvited into my mailbox. I like sports. That’s another blog for another day…

I complained… politely… Upon picking my jaw back up off the floor. Shane, my 13 year old, became red and embarrassed. Robbie, my oldest, walked away. Alex, my 10 year old, stood there staring at it, trying to understand my stance. Uninvited was this display before us, yet unable to delete it from the memory banks. The young guy heard me telling my sons what was wrong with this (by the way it was life sized and IN YOUR FACE). He walked away as if he were scared of me. ME? Come on now. He came back and was very helpful to my sons in helping them pick a challenging game for their age. And he turned to me and said, “I heard you complaining about the display and I am truly sorry that it is here.” He went on to tell me that others have been upset as well. {THANK YOU!} And that he knew it would cause problems, but the advertisers are paying and that’s the way it is. He told me that the “skater kids” (around 12-16yrs old) often come in just to put there faces in the insignificant girl’s “hole” so they can take pictures and laugh. Okay, fine. How can you blame them for that ? It’s there, in their faces too. Nothing against “skaters” by the way. My eldest was a great skater boiiiiiiii till he decided one day to grind a dumpster and shattered his elbow, resulting in major surgery. Brilliant…I know.

I went home and looked up the game on line and had some downloads of the game. It was so entertaining. If you’re a PIMP? Or a pig. Or a man who has no regard to females at all. The British creators of this game are women haters. They don’t put them up on a pedestal for their “beauty”. They create an arena of helpless, giddy, NAKED (of course with perfect hip to thigh and triple DDD perfection ratios) , imbecile , weak, and sexualized girls and women. I didn’t see one positive female role model. In fact they were all pole dancers. And naked. And servicing this moron of a man called Duke.

The main Character, Duke, (muscle bound macho man) is responsible for saving all the earthling women from being abducted by aliens. Yeah, apparently the aliens only like the strippers and dingbats. And the macho man only finds them worthy of being saved…for his own selfish agenda of course. I mean, if aliens take them, then WHO would give him a lap dance? In one line, upon realizing the aliens are coming again he says “why do they always take the hot ones?” Almost every line he says (at least in the trailers), in fact, is sexual in nature. He accepts an award and says “two awards at the same time is almost as good as two chicks.” He stays at a hotel named “fellatio hotel”. The three main women characters are : a naughty french maid who “loves to clean Macho man’s penthouse and polish his floors”, and a girl who has barely a shirt on over her perfect body who “knows how to play rough and talk shop with Duke (aka Macho man), oh then you have Mary and Kate …hot TWINS…no way!!!! How original guys…really….. “there’s nothing like motor boating with twin inboards” (there is also a huge insinuation that the sisters are also lesbians. Nice huh) There is also a marketing add for the game where the “school girl twins” are perched each at one of his feet while he sits tall and proudly smoking a cigar in a chair. In the game, they are both performing oral sex on him while he plays a video game in the chair. This is okay? Really????

I am a red-blooded American, raised by a Marine himself. I believe in freedom of speech. I get that an M rating is for “mature” (word used sarcastically and lightly) audiences and if I hate it then don’t watch it or buy it. Oh you can count on that. I won’t buy it. But I don’t appreciate it being clearly marketed for young boys. And I don’t appreciate it being in my face when I go into their store. I was more than offended. And I also am very well aware that MANY mommies and daddies out there are completely clueless as to what they allow their kids to buy or borrow. PLEASE open your eyes mom and dad!!!!

Someone quoted Albert Pike to me today. “Our moral & mental character is not formed in a moment; it is the habit of our minds; the result of many thoughts, feelings, & efforts”. She thought that would help me get through this feeling of helplessness I have when trying to raise little boys into gentlemen. The quote proves my point well, but not in the way my friend intended. Our moral character isn’t formed in a minute, true. Neither is the demise of the female. Boys and girls alike, are slowly and meticulously, being told that women are nothing but objects for a man’s gratification. That they are insignificant and whores. Doesn’t happen overnight. But constant exposure can only do harm. My son says that this game is just a cartoon. It shouldn’t matter. Maybe it doesn’t, if it were the ONLY thing that young girls and boys are exposed to only once. But it’s not. Not even close. Our kids are forced to grow up, be sexual, and mature way beyond their time. And we allow it by not taking a stand. I want my kids to have a childhood. Color me naive and rose colored glass wearer and all. Sue me. I want young girls to be just that. Young girls. Not objects that feel they need to fight for the approval of men/boys.

I asked my boys later that night to be honest with me and tell me if they understood my position at all. I told them I would understand if they didn’t. They all said they did. And they meant it.